My goldfish pond

[addy1]

Woo hoo Keith is getting a bigger pond, keith is getting a bigger pond! Happy dance! for you of course and for us we get to watch!

 

[CometKeith]

yes, but she said maybe in the spring. I'm sure I will have some hoops to jump through before the actual A Okay. I had two new additions today, both are blue-green..... See if you can spot them!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Get the shovel handy quick, in case she changes her mind! Thanks Keith and Sissy.. I LovE MedIcIne HaT! Even though the winters are so cold, it's nice here in winter too, snow makes all the puppy chocolate logs disapear... till spring! Here's some winter pictures from last year, when I still had the puppies mommy Sadie, who very sadly past away of cancer, leaving a big whole in my heart, poor Bear, he really was "mommys" boy! I cried hard for that dog, Sadie. She was so much work as a puppy, most people would have gotten rid of her, she was a little bit wild, but boy was she smart!
There was not a fence that Sadie couldn't jump,
There was not a dog that Sadie couldn't pin to the ground in two three seconds flat!
At the "good" puppy park where we used to go, people would say... is that Sadie!
Then the park would "clear out" fast when I showed up with my "hoard"!
When I was sad, Sadie would lick my tears away, boy I sure miss Sadie today!

 

[taherrmann4]

I just got my pond tour book. There are 67 ponds in all to look at. From as small as 400 gallons to over 60,000 gallons. Everyone has really interesting descriptions and some are even open until 9:00 PM for evening viewing. There is even a 20,000 gallon indoor pond. The tour goes from NW Indiana all the way up to SE Wisconsin! Colleen re babies. I am certain now i have more babies than adult fish. I have never had this kind of population explosion before. So for every color variation I have there are at least 3 or 4 similar. My guess is there are at least 15-20 babies in the pond that I actually can see and who knows how many there are besides that! They are really fun to watch now but I am not looking forward to them all getting big. I was on the phone today with someone from Colorado for business and she brought up the shooting. I didn't even know about it. Another terrible event for that state. The home of sky blue waters, rocky mountain highs, and mass murderers.

Comet is your pond in the tour???

 

[CometKeith]

No it is too small and uninteresting for most of the folks. Most of the time they want to see the big bang type stuff. Mine is really just a watergarden with no koi, and only goldfish, but we enjoy it. Next week we are going to an 11 acre estate with 4 ponds fed by a natural free flowing creek. It also has the largest private sculpture garden in Chicagoland including many of the Chicago Cows that were once on display throughout the city. Why would anyone come to ours when they could go to that instead?.... but thanks for asking!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Ops sorry about rambling on that last post, blame it on Sissy, she mentioned winter and so I found those old pictures and they got me remembering the past. I never was blessed with kids, so the puppies are my everything. Keith your pond is just great, bigger is not better, most people want to see something that they could themselves create, something that is not so overwhelming. Our garden show has all kinds of ponds, big and small, but sure not like the big show where you live. I got a new underwater light for the front pond, it looks good and I got some cheap fish that I saved from the pet store, feeder goldfish to put in the front pond cause no one from the big pond wanted to "downsize" their living quarters.

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks Colleen. Yes, bigger is not always better and we are happy with ours but maybe I could go a little bigger and be even happier! We have seen some ponds that take up entire back yards. They seem out of place. Your front garden and pond look great. I know people's pets are like part of their family and sorry about you losing Sadie. Years ago I had a dog that went missing on me. I checked every dog shelter in the Chicago area for a week and amazingly I found her. it was an unbelievable feeling.

 

[callingcolleen1]

That's a nice ending to your puppy story, I have never lost Poppy, she would never go far without me, she is always the first back in the truck after our evening walks, Bear on the other hand likes to "wander" so I keep an eye on him. Sadie was always running "at large" after jumping the fence!

I sat out till two am last night looking at the front yard from every angle, had to see the new underwater light from every possible view, had to get one after I saw the nice picture that won last month's photo award. I spied on the newly rescued gold fish that I got cheap to put in the front pond. Every year I go to this pet store that sells baby goldfish that people use to feed their larger fish, they are called "feeder goldfish" and I save some from "death row" and put them in the front pond. I could use the babies from the bottom pond, but they are having such a good time I didn't want to try to net them out when there swimming around so happy!

 

[CometKeith]

Yes, I know all about feeder fish. There is a new pet food store by us. They sell a few birds and fish and over 100 varieties of dog/cat food etc. They have a feeder tank with goldies for 13 cents each. The manager told me that people buy 100 at a time to feed their reptiles, amphibians etc. I have thought about saving a few but when I see some floating and sick in with them I am afraid of bringing any of them home due to disease. Now that I have 20 or more babies in my pond I'll be the one getting rid of fish.....BUT not as feeders!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Poor little goldies! You wouldn't want to put them in with your healthly little fish that's for sure, but for the front yard pond it works great, cause who know what goes on in the front yard when I 'm at work, little kids hang out from next door, gives them something to look at, and I was not willing to put my nice little babies out there, just in case. I can't imagine anyone of us "pond people" doing away with their excess babies by selling them as feeders! I would just make the pond bigger or give them to a nice home with a little pond, where the sun is aways shining, the birds singing, where the grass is always green, and a nice stream bubbles alongside of the pond... ops, back in the real world, I will worry about too many goldfish later.

Thought the downtown city hall looked great, partly funded by the taxes I pay, they planted nice red cannas that bloom orange around the big city hall clock. City hall does flower beds all over town (city has a greenhouse by the creek to grow plants) and they are planned and done very well, I look forward every year to the new and exciting planting arrangements. Its small town stuff compared to your big city, but interesting view of what goes on here in the "hat"

 

[addy1]

Nice dragon's Keith, and wow your hyacinths is growing like crazy

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks Addy! I am so proud of my dragonfly. I think when you have them then it is a sign your pond has really made it. There are no other water sources within a mile of me so I know it is my dragonfly. Also no one guessed the second blue green item; in one of the other pictures you can see this urn that I bought for $5 that I am going to put flowers or vines into. One of the ponds I visited was having a sale at the same time of assorted things and I couldn't resist it. Now my bio-filter and hoses are perfectly hidden. It is so heavy I think it is worth what I paid in scrap metal! Yes my floaters have really taken off. I haven't had any flowers on the water hyacinth yet, but I read somewhere that the flowers appear only when they are stressed. I'll have to figure out how I can transfer my stress into the hyacinths so they get stressed out too!

 

[CountryEscape]

Keith, are you serious, did you get that huge milk can for $5????? Please tell me it isn't so! If it is, and if they have any more, you should buy them all. They sell for Wayyyyyy more than that in antique stores. Wonder why it was so cheap. I love it! Great addition to your landscaping around the pond. And, I love your babies. I have babies that are tri colored from last year, but they all have lost their black. All kept the red and white markings, though. Wish I could get some to keep their black. This year I have at least 2 that are mostly black with orange heads, but I'm thinking those are maybe koi babies. We'll have to wait and see, though. .

 

[CometKeith]

CE, I bought it from a super nice lady from the pond tour. When you visit their pond they give everyone a beaded necklace with little fish on it. Two of my pics were from their pond. It had a tag on it for $6 and I didn't even want to bargain it down. She suggested $5 so I agreed. Amazingly my wife liked it too and we almost never agree on things like that. It does have a few holes on the bottom but figured they probably all do at that age. I wasn't sure if it was for milk but it has a little spout on the bottom and thought that might be it. We noticed some interesting plants by her pond and she told us they were donkey tails and she pulled a few out and gave them to us. We threw them in the milk can to take home so they were an added bonus. She said they could be poisonous to fish but she never had a problem. I have already planted them at the edge of my pond and they look nice. re babies. Today if I looked in one spot after feeding I could see up to 14....so does that mean I have twice that much??? Name any color you can think of and I have at least 3 or 4 of them in all sizes. I have a bunch of brown and a bunch of black, and almost every combination of black and orange in every size, and I think I have about a dozen or so shubunkin babies in all colors and sizes. A bunch of my babies have orange heads and black bodies so I don't know if yours are goldfish like mine or koi. Also I have some rosy red minnows that I got as eggs with the frog eggs someone sent me so i have a bunch of those as well! it would be neat if the black stayed black, but i am worried the brown will stay brown. I saw a pond a few years ago and all their goldfish were brown because they were multi-generational and they reverted to their wild color. it has been a lot of fun watching them, but I am leery about what will happen when they all get big!

 

[addy1]

Maybe new genes need to be added now and then to keep the gene pool fresh. My pond in arizona was around 8 yrs old when I had it torn down, never saw a brown goldfish.